Bones to Ashes

Sad Summer. Very bright Summer. Twenty-something Summer.

Slowly, carefully, I placed the handset on the base unit.

Slid down the pillow. Rolled to my side. Tucked my knees to my chest.

And lost it.

I don’t know how long the tears flowed or when I drifted off.

Again, a phone jolted me awake. This time it was my cell. I glanced at the clock. Nine forty-three.

I checked the screen.

Harry.

I couldn’t handle melodrama at that moment. I let it keep ringing.

Seconds later, the land line shrilled.

Cursing, I grabbed the handset and clicked on.

“What?” I snapped.

“Well now, aren’t we wearing our cranky pants.”

“It’s goddamn Sunday morning.”

“Just found a great recipe for kitten. Thought you might like to rustle some up.”

“You’re a scream, Harry.”

“Does our happy face need a little silicone injection?”

“This better not be round six on Arnoldo.” Tossing the covers, I headed for the kitchen. I needed caffeine.

“Ancient history.”

“Out with the old, in with the new, right?” Harsh, but I wasn’t in the mood for tales of marriage gone bad.

“Pete called.”

That threw me. “My Pete? When?”

“Just now. Doesn’t sound like he’s yours anymore.”

“Why call you?” I pulled beans from the cupboard, filled the grinder.

“Thought you might need cheering up.”

“Well, isn’t that ever so considerate. I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

I said nothing.

“You want to talk, I want to listen.”

I hit the button. Blades whirred. A warm, coffee smell filled the kitchen.

“Tempe?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s me. Baby sister.”

I dumped grounds into the Mr. Coffee. Added water.

“Yo, Tempe?”

Did I want to talk?

“Let me call you back.”

Ninety minutes later I’d unloaded everything.

Ryan. Lily. Lutetia. The cold case investigation of the dead and missing girls. Phoebe Jane Quincy. The Lac des Deux Montagnes floater. The Doucets.

My sister is flighty, volatile, and prone to hysterics. But she’s also a world-class listener. She didn’t interrupt.

Finally, I told Harry about Hippo and the skeleton I’d demanded from the coroner in Rimouski. Hippo’s girl.

“I’ve got no words of wisdom on Pete or Ryan, so let’s talk about this skeleton. Let me see if I have this straight. Hippo’s the cold case guy. He learned about the skeleton from his pal, Gaston, who’s also SQ. Gaston had spotted the thing in the company of a cop in the boondocks named Luc Tiquet. Tiquet had confiscated it from two spray-paint punks, Trick and Archie Whalen. They’d bought it from Jerry O’Driscoll’s pawnshop. O’Driscoll had fenced it off an old coot named Tom Jouns. Jouns had unearthed it from an Indian burial ground. That track about right?”

“If everyone’s telling the truth.”

“Life’s full of ifs.”

“Indeed, it is.”

“What kind of Indian burial ground?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Micmac.”

“So the girl was Indian.”

“I think she’s white.”

“Why?”

“Facial architecture.”

“You estimate she died at thirteen or fourteen.”

“Yes.”

“Of some kind of disease.”

“She was sick, but I don’t know that the illness killed her.”

“What did?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of illness?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, there’s something we can put in the paper. How long’s she been dead?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“A long time?”

“Yes.”

Harry made a clicking sound.

I drew a deep breath.

“Do you remember Évangéline and Obéline Landry?”

“Think I’m ready for the Texas State Hospital? ’Course I remember. I was nine, you were twelve. They disappeared from Pawleys Island and clean off the face of planet Earth. We spent three years trying to get a bead on them. Burned a busload of coins calling Canada.”

“This sounds a little far-fetched, but there’s a remote possibility Hippo’s girl could actually be Évangéline.”

“Hippo’s girl?”

“The Jouns-O’Driscoll-Whalen-Tiquet-Gaston-Hippo skeleton.”

“How remote?”

“Very.”

I told Harry about Laurette and Obéline. And David Bastarache.

“Miserable sonovabitch. Give me a clear shot at his pecker, and that asshole won’t be setting any more fires.”

Harry could mix metaphors like no one I knew. I didn’t point out that this one redefined human anatomy.

Silence hummed across the continent. Then Harry said what I knew Harry would say.

“I’m coming up there.”

“What about selling your house?”

“You think I’m going to stay here diddlin’ with real estate? You’re a smart woman, Tempe, but sometimes I wonder how you pull your undies up in the morning.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’ve got Obéline’s address and telephone number?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need a giant finger pointing down at burning shrubbery?”

I let her go on.

“I’ll get my heinie on a plane to la Belle Province. You book us tickets to New Brunswick.”

“You’re suggesting we visit Obéline?”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, Hippo will be pissed.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“That would be unprofessional, and potentially dangerous. I’m not a cop, you know. I rely on them.”

“We’ll text him from the forest primeval.”

16

H ARRY’S PLANE WAS DUE IN AT TEN. I’D BOOKED A NOON FLIGHT to Moncton. Our plan was to meet at the departure gate.